With Playoff Hopes on Line, Jets Put Ball on Turf

Mark Sanchez, guaranteed $8.25 million next season, completed 13 of 28 passes for 131 yards, one touchdown and four interceptions.Credit
Andy Lyons/Getty Images

NASHVILLE — The Jets’ season began on a warm and sunny afternoon, and after a comprehensive victory, all things seemed possible. It ended on a crisp and windy night, and after another embarrassing defeat, all things seem possible once more.

No longer can the Jets kid themselves that this team they fielded, a group that barely defeated two of the worst teams in the N.F.L. the past two weeks, is good enough to contend. This team, a group that needed to win to remain in playoff contention, delivered the sort of performance that costs people jobs.

And there will be changes this off-season after the Jets were finally, mercifully, eliminated on Monday night in a 14-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans that should be submitted as evidence to the N.F.L. that the postseason field should be reduced, not expanded.

According to ESPN Stats and Information, the Jets (6-8) became the first team since the 1986-89 Miami Dolphins to miss the playoffs two straight years following consecutive appearances in the conference championship game.

The Jets have endured their share of debacles this season, and it is not a disproportionate share. They held fast to the delusion that they, with a sluggish offense and an erratic quarterback, could somehow slip into the playoffs. There is no credible way to spin their plight now.

A team that was humiliated on Thanksgiving night, in its last appearance on national television, just might have given the networks pause when they formulate their slate for 2013. Unless, that is, fans around the country are interested in watching an offense that does not score touchdowns, a quarterback who is gifted at throwing interceptions and a defense that, with little margin for error, cannot get a stop when it is most needed.

In the latest — but perhaps not final — debacle, the Jets committed five turnovers. Or rather, Mark Sanchez, their franchise quarterback, committed five turnovers. Three came in the final 7 minutes 26 seconds of the fourth quarter, which could have been his defining moment. Maligned and criticized, pulled from the Jets’ Dec. 2 game against Arizona, Sanchez had a double-barreled chance for redemption: changing the perception of him while keeping the Jets alive another week.

It was all there for Sanchez. Or not.

One interception. Then a second. Then a fumble, after the Jets, following a poor punt by Tennessee, took over at the Titans’ 25 with 47 seconds left.

“That situation is almost like a gift,” safety Yeremiah Bell said.

“It’s like the football gods were giving it to us,” guard Matt Slauson said, “but we couldn’t capitalize.”

“For that last play to happen,” Coach Rex Ryan said, “that was about as bad as it gets.”

Considering the stakes, Ryan is correct. But really, he has a catalog the size of a diner menu to choose from. Winnow that list of mishaps, and a theme emerges: the vast majority involves their offense, which reflects poorly on coordinator Tony Sparano, and even more on Sanchez — and not just because, as quarterback, he touches the ball on most every play.

When Ryan announced that Sanchez had fended off a challenge from Greg McElroy to retain his starting job for last week’s game at Jacksonville, he cautioned that Sanchez needed to make better decisions, that another bushel of fumbles and interceptions was unacceptable. And then came Monday. In 14 games, Sanchez has committed 24 turnovers.

“I’m not playing well enough for us to win,” Sanchez said. “I made a couple of bad throws.”

It is impossible to make a “couple of” bad throws after throwing two couples of interceptions. The script for a Sanchez news conference is, by now, as predictable as the interceptions he threw Monday night. He speaks of having to get better, of having to make fewer mistakes, of being more accurate.

It was said after the 34-0 blowout to San Francisco, the 30-9 dud against Miami, the 28-7 flop in Seattle, the 49-19 ignominy to New England and, yes, on Monday night, too. Asked if Sanchez had regressed, Ryan would not answer, instead saying, “I know this certainly wasn’t a good day, for sure.” Asked if Sanchez would start next week, Ryan said it was too early to announce a starter.

“I’m not ready to say,” Ryan said.

Who starts Sunday against San Diego, in front of what should be an unforgiving crowd at MetLife Stadium, is less of a concern than who starts for the Jets in 2013. Sanchez is owed a guaranteed $8.25 million next season, but after Monday’s failure — 13 for 28 for 131 yards, a 32.6 rating and, of course, those five turnovers — the Jets will have to seriously consider whether he gives them their best chance to win a Super Bowl.

“It all goes back to self-inflicted wounds, you killing yourself, and that’s something we can’t do, and that’s something that we continue to do,” Bell said.

Photo

The Jets had played Chris Johnson well for his first seven carries Monday night, limiting him to 10 yards. On his eighth, in the second quarter, Johnson scored on a 94-yard run.Credit
Andy Lyons/Getty Images

For two weeks, the Jets were like the trick candle at a child’s birthday party, the cockroach in a nuclear winter. They survived one miserable team, then another, edging Arizona and Jacksonville by a total of 8 points, as the teams ahead of them in the A.F.C. wild-card chase — Pittsburgh and Cincinnati — stumbled, extending the mirage for a bit longer.

The Bengals’ mauling of Philadelphia last Thursday shoved the Jets to the verge of elimination, placing them in the position of needing to win their final three games just to have a chance — a thought, they pledged, that they had not even entertained.

What they had considered, though, was how they butt-fumbled their way to that disaster against New England. The Jets embraced this opportunity in prime-time. They spoke of atonement, of improvement, of showing the nation what Jets football is all about, which, to some, might be a terrifying thought.

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And then the game started. Against a defense that allowed an average of 29.7 points, most in the N.F.L., the Jets in the first half gained all of 99 yards, tallying all of 3 points, scoring first in a game for the first time since Week 7 at New England.

Consider those 3 points at halftime an accomplishment, though, since in their previous two games, they were shut out in the first half. Small victories and all that.

Sanchez, for once, was not all to blame, at least from the quarterback position. There were cries of Hallelujah throughout the land when, on their third drive, Tim Tebow took the first snap. And the second. And the third. And all five on the possession, producing 17 yards and roughly twice as many questions as to why, in Week 15, the Jets decided to unleash Tebow for his first full series of the season. At best, this experiment was a failure. At worst, it is one of the more shortsighted personnel decisions in franchise history.

Ryan said inserting Tebow then was the plan all along. His plan, he said. Sanchez seemed a bit confused by the decision afterward.

“I have no idea,” Sanchez said. He added, “Ask coach.”

“I guess that’s for you guys to formulate your own opinion,” said Ryan, when asked whether Tebow disrupted the rhythm of Sanchez, who, in his first two drives, had led the offense to seven first downs and 3 points. “I don’t think it matters.”

Tebow had not played since Nov. 18 in St. Louis, hampered by two broken ribs and the Jets’ indecisiveness or, perhaps, unwillingness to let him play, despite considering him a far better option to back up Sanchez than McElroy, their savior against Arizona. Maybe the Jets were saving Tebow for the playoffs.

“You just want to do whatever you can do to help,” Tebow said.

He threw one pass, incomplete. He ran three times, for 15 yards. He also handed the ball off once.

In effect, that is what Jake Locker did with Chris Johnson, the Titans’ exceptional running back. Johnson ran the ball 21 times (for 122 yards), but the enduring image is of one particular carry.

“You can play well for 20 carries against them,” Jets defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said about Johnson on Friday, “and all of a sudden on the 21st one you’re sitting there shaking your head.”

The Jets did play Johnson well for his first seven carries, limiting him to 10 yards. Then came his eighth. Powered by the names of the victims in the Newtown, Conn., school shooting that he scrawled on his shoes, Johnson burst up the middle for the longest run in franchise history. He blazed past Sione Pouha, who said he misread the play; past Bart Scott, who zagged when he should have zigged; past Bell, who gave futile chase. The 94-yard scamper — Johnson’s sixth rushing touchdown of at least 80 yards, an N.F.L. record — put Tennessee ahead, 7-3, which, at the time, seemed an insurmountable margin.

The score stayed that way until the teams traded touchdowns late in the third quarter — a 17-yarder from Sanchez to Jeff Cumberland, followed by a 13-yard run by Locker — putting the Jets within 4 points of Tennessee, at 14-10, for the final 15:20.

Three possessions went by — two punts and Sanchez’s third interception — before the Jets took over at their 8 with 5:20 left. The Jets, benefiting by a roughing-the-passer call on third-and-4, reached the Tennessee 23. On the first play after the two-minute warning, Sanchez threw into triple coverage, off his back foot, the pass grabbed by Michael Griffin at his own 2.

“Just threw it a little late,” Sanchez said.

Those final two words — little late — sum up the Jets’ season. They were a little late to win two games in a row. They were a little late to integrate Tebow into the offense. They were a little late, perhaps, to pull Sanchez.

And as a result, for the first time in Ryan’s four seasons, they will play two games that have little consequence other than puffing up their record. If the Jets beat San Diego and win at Buffalo, they will be 8-8. The best they can be is mediocre.

“We don’t have anybody to blame but ourselves, that’s the thing that stings the most,” Pace said. “We blew it. We just blew it.”

A version of this article appears in print on December 18, 2012, on Page B15 of the New York edition with the headline: With Playoff Hopes on Line, Jets Put Ball on Turf. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe